C6Y1 Yamagumo ("Mountain Clouds")

[sideshowbob9]

*Grabs chair and munchies*

Been looking forward to this one!

[sequoiaranger]

SSB9, Taiid, and Pablo:

Thanks.

I am enjoying this relatively simple whif (compared to the complicated and exhausting ones I have been doing recently) of a longstanding desire. Ever since I first heard that three pre-production D4Y's, banned from dive-bombing but useful as speedy recce planes, were used at Midway, I have wanted to model one.

The old LS Suisei (been around for some fifty years) is hopelessly skinny in the fuselage, and when the Fujimi D4Y came out some years back, with the right fuselage cross-section, I was even more desirous. I wanted badly to find a picture of a GRAY one, in keeping with what most Japanese carrier aircraft looked like at the time, but all I could EVER find was the dark-green-on-top ones. I bided my time hoping that I could dredge up such a reference, but to no avail.

Then came "Furashita's Fleet" where I was "liberated" to my own, slightly-advanced development time-line, and thus, the D4Y Recce-over-Pearl-Harbor was conceived. Then I heaped whiffery onto THAT with the single-seat, photo-recce, four-bladed hot rod now taking shape on my workbench. Whoo-Hoo!

[sequoiaranger]

Here is a pic of my concept mock-up--an old, crude LS Judy (it had opening bomb-bay doors!--the present LS ones do not) that I have had for some 40 years. I photo-shopped the two-place canopy to one-place for the picture. On my current project I will have different tail markings, but the coloration and "low-viz" look will be similar.

[Taiidantomcat]

Not a bad preview at all 

[sotoolslinger]

Very nice. Great looking AC

[sequoiaranger]

Slinger and Taiid--Thanks.

OK. The principle here is that any possibly "gooey", petroleum-product-laden air from the ventral radiator is led away from the Plexiglas coverings of the cameras so the lenses don't get gooped up themselves. To accomplish that, a raised "shelf" extends all the way around the clear openings to divert the boundary air of the aircraft. Fresh air from a scoop located away from the "gooey air" (and combustion exhaust) is ducted, under pressure, to just behind the inside leading edge of the shelf, to replace deflected air so that there are no eddies or vacuums. The gooey, deflected air joins up with the fresh air at the rear of the structure.

I carefully bent some .022 square stock in an oval (penned in on the clear plastic from an oval template), then cut out a "surfboard" of .010 sheet, then carefully cut a "rim" piece that got glued onto the square stock, forming an "L" in cross-section. Doing it ovally was very difficult (took me four "toilet seats" to get it right), and if I f___ed up the gluing operation I would have had to buy another expensive DML Ar-234 to get another glass plate.

The clear plate (from an Arado 234) will have all but the two large windows and the central "periscope" glass painted the bottom color. It fit like a charm. My Mark IV eyeball judged the curvatures correctly this time. Cameras will be attached to the inside of the Plexiglas panels and be slightly visible from outside.



Here is a side view of the "shelf" that will protect the lenses from goop from the engine. Note that the production C6N Saiun (Myrt) reconnaissance plane, of the same ilk as my fictional Yamagumo, more cleverly just mounted the ventral oil cooler off-center (the 5 o'clock position as seen from the front), so the cameras in the center would not be bothered by engine goo. Two ways to skin a cat (my way is more "whiffy").

[Taiidantomcat]

Its a very smart detail to include, something I think a lot of folks might forget to add  Adds a lot of realism for a small detail 

[sequoiaranger]

My original plan for the Yamagumo was to have the cameras pointing obliquely (roughly the 5 o'clock position as seen from the front), but the Arado 234's Plexiglas panel I had planned to use wouldn't match the contours of the Suisei's fuselage sides. After all, the Ar-234 was a TWIN-engined plane with the cameras in the bottom of the fuselage, so the fuselage would not be gummed up by any engine products swept back by the airflow. I was determined to use the Arado set-up because it came with the cameras that one would be able to just see behind the clear panels. So I kind of put myself in this pickle, and had to "extract" myself logically. Thus the "deflector" scheme.

Looking at American and British single-engined recce aircraft (Spitfire, Early Mustangs, etc), they almost always had obliquely-mounted cameras, pointing down out a low side window.  Perhaps the oblique view gave better perspective for the photos. My setup (straight down) has its disadvantages, but by using TWO cameras we can create 3D perspective, even as close together as they are, and given some altitude.

[sequoiaranger]

I finally buttoned up the interior, after making a single-seat cockpit from the dual, the somewhat-elaborate camera bay, the extra fuel bay, and making them fit all together. The first view lets you see the interior of the cockpit, painted that anti-corrosion metallic green/blue the Japanese were fond of. I used an offset "bowtie" stick. The "leather" periscope eyepiece can be seen to the left of the pilot, but you can't see the shaft going down to the floor.  Also visible is the scoop for the camera faceplate air, and in the lower right you can just see the rim of the ventral air deflector.



In this view, the extra fuel tank bay and the camera bay are seen. The dark interior of the aircraft makes it almost impossible to see the "elaborate" camera setup inside.    *I* know they are there! The photo angle makes the Yamagumo appear to have the blunt nose of a radial engine, but trust me, it's an inline.



I need to clean up the separation between parts, glue the canopy (and mask it) and landing gear on, mask the camera ports, then I will be ready for painting!!

[tc2324]

Very cool concept, story and build. Looking forward to the final product.

[Pablo1965]

Brilliant concept 

[sequoiaranger]

First--Pablo and tc--thanks. Here's more for anyone interested. I have decided to conserve whiffer website space and just link to a "Furashita's Fleet" webpage instead:

http://www.combinedfleet.com/furashita/yamagu_f.htm

You can't yet get to it from my Furashita website. I have been S-L-O-W-L-Y working up a "Furashita's Air Fleet" section to highlight aircraft rather than ships, but it will be a LONG time coming. Meanwhile, I offer a direct link from here.

I have a primer coat on, and as usual it exposes all the cracks, putty lumps, and mis-aligned parts. (sigh) Gotta rectify them before putting on the "final" coats. I probably won't have a picture until it's done as "normal", then with its "suterusu" cloak of misty gray.

[sequoiaranger]

I had my Yamagumo all painted the main light-gray color, had masked and sprayed on the black anti-glare cowl, nicely curved down to the radiator outlets from the pilot's canopy, and when the mask was removed I noticed a few spots needing gray touch-up.

I *ALWAYS* have at least two bottles of the same color--one of the regular paint, and another the thinned version for airbrushing (labeled with a black diamond so the difference is obvious). When spraying the initial "N 10" gray paint, I had a choice of two bottles, and picked the seemingly-freshest one. When I reached for the normal paint to re-touch, I noticed it was a different color. To my surprise, there were three other "N 10" bottles---one regular, one thinned for airbrushing, and one super-thinned for the low-viz "misting" effect I was going to use on this model. Well, THEY were all the same color, but "my" N-10 was different.  Shock set in!   

"My" N-10 was a slight green-gray (that's OK--IJN 10 is supposed to be a little green, not quite as much as the Army IJA 10), but there was no other paint in my large inventory of the same shade. Uh-oh. Trying to touch-up with thinned paint is very difficult and looks lousy--too transparent. Plus, I may need more N-10 sometime.

Luckily I had some RLM gray (a green-gray) mix of my own doing, and by carefully mixing the RLM gray with some white and orange, I came up with an approximate duplicate color.

IT WORKED!    WHEW! But I was shocked at my lack of cognizance and discipline in the first place. Let that be a lesson in preparedness---make sure you have the colors you need BEFORE applying the paint!

[sequoiaranger]

I have "finished" painting my hot-rod Yamagumo recce but for the "Suterusu" overspray that will turn the bright red Hinomarus into a dun color with a red tint. Right now the mask is still on the canopy, so I crudely painted on silver for the clear panels just for the photo. I will probably complete my model sometime in the next week, and present the finished look in another post (along with a only-slightly-doctored B/W picture of the real thing).

[sotoolslinger]

Beauty